Click here for a full profile Mr Le Pen himself is preparing for his major television interview since coming second in the first round of the presidential poll on Sunday, seeing off the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

A student confederation has called a mass protest to coincide with Mr Le Pen's television appearance on Tuesday evening, at the end of a day of demonstrations against his shock election success.

During the day more than 70,000 people - most of them school and university students - gathered in Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, La Rochelle and other cities for a second day of protests.

Elsewhere in France, Click here for the election results

On Monday, a total of 100,000 took to the streets in France: placards reading "I am ashamed" were hoisted in cities from Lille in the north to Marseilles on the Mediterranean coast.

Challenge

Mr Chirac has called on voters to rally around him to preserve the unity of the republic and respect for human rights.

But the National Front leader has been relishing his chance to take on the incumbent president, pledging to end what he calls a "decadent and corrupt system".

Outlining his policies, Mr Le Pen has appeared to compare the European Union with the late USSR and predicted that France might disappear under the weight of immigration.

In presidential style, he also commended the defeated Socialist leader for announcing his retirement from politics.

"I think we must praise the noble gesture of Mr Jospin, who drew the conclusions from his failure," he said.

Mr Jospin's Socialists and the other main parties of the left have called on their supporters to back Mr Chirac on 5 May in a concerted effort to defeat the far-right challenger.

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